


Little Victories

by civilsmile



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Dom/sub, Fisting, Gang Rape, HYDRA Trash Party, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Knifeplay, M/M, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 01:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8825440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilsmile/pseuds/civilsmile
Summary: It rarely hurts to show a little initiative, and Jack's always been an optimist.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pink_green_purple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pink_green_purple/gifts).



> Written for a [prompt](https://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/2271.html?thread=4638431#cmt4638431) at the hydratrashmeme:
> 
> My needs are simple: someone wants to bottom / sub / be brutally fucked by the Winter Soldier.

"Fuck off," the Winter Soldier says, and knocks Jack's arm aside. Not hard enough to hurt; not even hard enough to be what he wants, although it's a start. "I'm _working_."

"So work with your dick in my mouth. I bet I can fit under the desk." Jack's a skinny kid, but he's pushing six-foot-two; there is absolutely no way he'll fit under the desk. The Soldier looks up from his maps long enough to convey his withering skepticism. 

"Don't you have a floor to mop?"

Well, that hurts. The Soldier sees it, and bares his teeth nastily. Jack gives his sweetest smile in return. So he's a high school dropout, starting at the bottom. So fucking what? He's smarter than half these assholes, and meaner than the other half. Jack Rollins is going to be on the STRIKE team one day.

"Let's make it quick, then, yeah?" He licks his lips like the little slut he is. "I'm good. Though, what I hear, it's mostly the other way arou—"

The Soldier stands up so fast his chair skitters back, nearly toppling. He closes the distance between them with a single stride, and lifts his metal arm in a gesture Jack knows all too well. He stumbles back, cursing, throwing up his arms to protect his head. Slowly, the Soldier lowers his hand.

"You're not in my chain of command," the Soldier says. "You don't give me orders. You leave me alone."

" _Everyone's_ in your chain of command, asshole," Jack says, ill-advisedly. "Or do you want me explaining to Secretary Pierce how his pet's getting full of itself."

For the space of a heartbeat, two, the Winter Soldier stops breathing. Then he sneers. "Yes. Do that. Please bother the Secretary, if you can get anywhere near him, with your perverted little problems." For a moment, the blue eyes flash with something like laughter. "Who knows. Maybe he'll get me a bigger desk."

* * *

The Soldier probably thought he'd give up. The Soldier doesn't know him very well.

"Are you _stalking_ me?" The Soldier's face is streaked with dirt and blood, almost certainly not his own. He's got one of his guns disassembled on the table, is handling its component parts with a proprietary affection Jack's going to think about later when he jerks off. 

"They sent me to help you clean your weapons. Get you to debrief faster. And—" His hands curl into fists, but he keeps his chin up. What's he got going for him, except his giant fucking brass balls? "I thought you might like a good hard fuck. Blow off a little steam."

He steps closer, reaching for a cleaning rag, and the Soldier snarls. "Like hell they did. You touch my things, you're not going to like what happens." Jack stops where he is, holds up his open hands. The Soldier looks at him for the first time, really looks, his eyes raking slow over Jack's lanky frame. His mouth curls into a smile. It's not very nice. "Or maybe you would. Sick little fuck like you."

"Now you're catching on." His body shifts into a familiar stance, loose and insolently inviting. "Might need more than your big fat dick, yeah? Might need a little punishment." 

The Soldier turns away in disgust. "Thought I told you to fuck off."

Jack can handle contempt. He's had practice. "Might be nice, don't you think? Get a little of your own back? I know what they do to you. Put you in the chair, put you in the tank—" 

The Soldier fucking _flinches_. Wrong track. "I like it," Jack says. "Yeah, I'm a sick fuck. Is that what you want to hear? I'd like those boots in my ribs. I'd like that robot arm around my throat. It fucking gets me off, all right?"

The Soldier shakes his head, and hunches over his gun. "Get lost, kid."

Jack shrugs. It was worth a try.

* * *

"They asked me to bring you these," Jack says, setting the binders down. "Target's projected schedule, and satellite photos—" He breaks off as a metal hand closes abruptly on his collar, yanks him close. He cringes, pulling futilely against the Soldier's grip. "What the _fuck_. Let me _go_." 

The Soldier shakes him, once, and Jack goes limp, a child's response to rage. "What. Is that."

 _Fuck._ Jack turns his face away, ashamed. "Nothing. Get off me."

The Soldier fists his human hand in Jack's hair, tilting his face to the light. Jack knows what's there: the cut lip, the eye swollen nearly shut, the bruises like a stain. Then the Soldier shoves him away, so hard he trips over his own damn feet. He catches himself on his knees. 

"Who did that." 

Jack studies the tile pattern in the floor. "What the fuck do you care."

"Get up," the Soldier says. He doesn't want to. His face feels hot. The Soldier takes a step toward him. " _Get up_." He scrambles awkwardly to his feet. "I'm going to ask you one more time."

"None of your goddamn business," Jack says. Shouts, really, although he doesn't mean to. He needs to keep his voice down. "I went looking somewhere else."

The Soldier comes in close, unstoppable, and Jack can't help the sound he makes. He grips Jack's shoulder with his human hand, and closes the metal one around his jaw. It's delicate, almost, until his thumb digs into the cut on Jack's lip. After a moment, Jack tastes the copper tang of his own blood.

" _Fuck you_ ," the Soldier says, with great sincerity. "No you fucking don't."

Jack twists helplessly, ruining his mouth against the Soldier's brutal grasp. The knife at his belt comes smooth and deadly into his hand. He brings the blade up fast between them, setting the point hard against the Soldier's gut. The Soldier's laugh is thick with scorn.

"A little late for that, don't you think?"

"What," Jack spits, " _now_ you're into it? Thought I was supposed to be the sick one."

The Soldier lets him go, and stands relaxed, his arms loose at his sides. He doesn't step back. "Give me the knife."

Jack growls. "I don't need your fucking pity."

"Good."

He hesitates. Then he flips the blade, his heartbeat loud in his own ears, and offers up the hilt. 

The Soldier makes no move to take it. The blue eyes are cold, disdainful. "No."

"I—" Jack says. Is the Soldier _fucking_ with him? His belly twists, a sick tangle of shame and fury. The blue-balling bastard, Jack's going to _murder_ him—

The Soldier sighs. "Get on your knees," he says, like Jack is stupid. "And ask me to hurt you with it."

Ah. This one he knows. He goes down easily, obedient, dizzy with relief. He's not as graceful as he was, maybe, back when the counselors used to call him _pretty_ , but he can still make his face go soft and pleading. The bruises will spoil the effect or enhance it, he thinks, according to the Soldier's taste. "Please cut me. Make me bleed. I deserve it." It rarely hurts to show a little initiative, and Jack's always been an optimist. "Please fuck my mouth. Please choke me—" He directs his best slutty look up through his eyelashes, sets down the knife, and reaches for the Soldier's belt.

The Soldier strikes with inhuman speed, seizing his right hand and bending it savagely back. Jack cries out in startled pain. "Next time," the Soldier says, "I'll break your wrist. You don't touch me." 

Jack nods, not trusting himself to speak. The Soldier bears down, punishing him, tearing another cry from his throat. When he lets go, Jack cradles the injured hand against his chest. The corners of his eyes are wet. His stupid fucking dick is hard as a rock. "And cut the crap."

He looks up frankly into the Soldier's derisive gaze, and swallows, so that his voice will be clear and steady when he says, "I need you to hurt me." He picks up the knife again, left-handed, and holds it out.

The Soldier smiles, soft and vicious, and takes it from him. He spins it in clever fingers, the blade flashing too fast for the eye to follow, and gives Jack a look that says he knows exactly how close Jack is to coming in his pants, and is not impressed. Then the Soldier's human hand closes in Jack's hair, and the metal fist brings the knife arcing toward his face.

Jack shuts his eyes like an idiot, but it's the hilt that presses hard into his bruised cheek, grinding into the worst of the swelling. His mouth falls open in a pained moan. Slowly, the Soldier drags the steel down over his wounded face, an agonizing insult to the damaged flesh. Jack gasps through the hurt of it.

When the Soldier slides the hilt into his mouth, Jack feels the ever-present static in his head go quiet at last. Broken lips distorted around his own damn knife, it's his turn to smile. 

* * *

Jack sprawls on the cold floor of the Soldier's cell. His ribs ache where the Soldier beat him, fists and feet that should have shattered bone leaving bruises instead. ( _Harder_ , Jack had begged, wild with it, lowering the hands flung up to protect his head so he could meet the Soldier's furious eyes. The Soldier spat in his face.) His inner thighs are a swollen, purple mess, torn in places, where the Soldier pinched the delicate skin between metal fingers until Jack screamed. His own come is drying on his belly.

The Soldier sits on his cot, where Jack isn't allowed. Back braced against the wall, arms draped casually over his knees, he looks—not happy, but marginally less murderous. Jack rolls over to face him. 

"How come I've never seen your dick? You even got one?" When the Soldier doesn't erupt off the cot to kick the shit out of him, Jack presses on. "Everyone thinks I'm taking it up the ass from the Winter Soldier. I should be so fucking lucky, huh?"

The Soldier doesn't say anything for a while, which is kind of creepy, but normal for him. Finally: "I have one." Another silence. The corners of his mouth quirk up. He lifts one finger, fractionally, toward the ceiling. "Video. Your friends can check the tapes."

 _We have to be careful_ , Jack had said, the second time. Almost a month ago, now. _Can't let them catch us, yeah?_

The Soldier stared at him blankly. _You think they would let me keep a secret._

Jack felt his stomach turn over. _Am I—in trouble? No one's said—_

_I'm a good dog._

Which made it Jack's turn to stare. _So what does that make me?_

The Soldier's low, mean laugh sent a shiver down his spine. _Chew toy._

Video. Jack's throat tightens unpleasantly at the thought. His early work, at least, will never lack for viewers. He arranges his face in a smirk, obnoxious as he can make it. "They should sell that shit. Plenty of perverts out there. Fucking goldmine." The Soldier, he thinks, is trying to distract him. "So if you've got a dick—which, hey, congratulations—when do I get up close and personal with it? You know I'm a fucking slut. For pain, yeah. For cock as well. When you get me down on the floor, knock me around, you know I want you to stick it in. Hold me by the fucking throat—"

That's—revulsion, on the Soldier's face. Jack shuts his mouth, stung. _Ugly_ , he thinks. Stupidly, reflexively: _too old._ "Fine. Forget I fucking mentioned it."

The Soldier gets up from the cot, unhurried, his eyes on Jack's naked body chilly with dislike. "You talk too much."

Jack's breath quickens. He feels like a skinned thing, exposed, laid out on the floor with the Soldier looming over him. His cock twitches, starts to harden again. 

"Spread your legs."

"Oh," Jack says, when the Soldier rests a booted foot on the livid wreck of his left thigh. "Fuck, _wait—_ "

The Soldier grinds down. Jack howls.

* * *

The Soldier comes back from his missions clear-eyed, animated by the challenge of leading his team into danger and out again. Sometimes, Jack learns, they will unfreeze him for a single critical operation, and return him to the tank to sleep away another year, or three, or five. Sometimes, as now, they use him for months at a stretch. Jack studies the papers for clues, a nameless excitement gripping him at the thought of public disaster. When the headlines begin to scream of invasion, he feels the thrill of it in his blood. They are starting a war.

This mission was different, Jack thinks. The Soldier strips off his gear in sharp, graceless movements, dropping it piece by piece to the floor rather than passing it into Jack's waiting hands. Blood on his gloves, blood on his muzzle. When he pulls the goggles away, his eyes are wild as an animal's. The team is quiet, stowing their equipment and heading for the doors. 

When they're alone, Jack slips to his knees. The Soldier is naked from the waist up, stripped to his heavy black pants and boots. Jack eyes the ruined meat of his shoulder, the old scars raw as fresh butchery. His chest is powerfully muscled, oddly hairless; Jack wants to lick it. "Welcome home, dear."

The Soldier's gaze darts toward him, and away. "No."

 _What?_ "Aw, come on. You killed the good guys, right?" Jack laughs at his own dumb joke. "Time to celebrate."

A shudder passes over the Soldier's face. "Not a kill."

"Seriously?" It's never occurred to him, somehow, that the Soldier might fail. "You _missed?_ "

The Soldier rolls his left shoulder restlessly, the plates of his arm flaring open and closed with a hiss of machinery. "Interrogation."

The idea hits Jack with almost physical force. The Soldier's metal fingers snapping bone, his knives carving flesh. He feels lightheaded with arousal. "Wish I'd been there."

The Soldier looks at Jack like something he found under a rock, something with too many legs he wants to kill because he can, because it disgusts him. "Get out."

Jack shoves down the flash of fear. "We're back to this shit? Playing coy again? You want me to beg, I will." That's all it is, he thinks. The Soldier can't be bored with him, not yet. The Soldier just likes to see him grovel. He closes his eyes for a moment, lets some measure of his desperation spill into his voice. "Please. I need it. It's been a _week_." The violence is like a drug, Jack thinks: the more he gets, the more he needs. He'd touched his own knife speculatively, imagined the din of his thoughts spilling out with his blood. One of the older boys at the home had shown him how to do it, back when Jack thought he might start screaming and never stop. He'd made himself wait. "I need y—"

" _Stop it._ " The Soldier wheels away from him, heading for the door, leaving Jack on his knees like a fool. 

"Hey!" Humiliation burns through him. " _Asset._ " The Soldier freezes. "Yeah, that's right. How much longer before they put you back to sleep? You think I'll still be fetching and carrying when you wake up? I'm not in your chain of command, but _I fucking will be_. Maybe not the next time they pull you out of the ice. Maybe not the time after that. But one day—one day _soon_ , as far as you're concerned—I'm going to have the codes that open your head." Jack stops to breathe. He's shaking. "You might want to think about keeping me happy."

Slowly, the Soldier turns toward him. The look on his face is not one Jack has seen before. There's no impatience in that flat gaze, no irritation. His expression is _empty_. He comes at Jack with a predator's beautiful economy of movement, like he's still wearing his weapons, like he has all the time in the world. For the first time since they started this fucked-up game, the Soldier hits him in the face with a closed fist.

It's his right hand, but Jack goes over like a log, his ears ringing. The Soldier crouches above him, plants a knee in the small of his back to keep him down. Fucking _finally_. He struggles against the Soldier's weight, and grins in savage satisfaction when the Soldier holds him still.

" _Happy?_ " 

Jack does his best to shrug. "Depends. You got any plans for me, now you got me down here? Or are we just going to cuddle."

The Soldier gets off him far enough that he can haul Jack's hips up. He grinds his dick against Jack's ass, and _holy shit_ , the Soldier's hard for him. "Where the fuck," Jack says, his voice gone hoarse, "have you been keeping _that_?"

The Soldier makes a low, choked-off sound. "Drugs." His hands are rough, reaching around to open Jack's pants and shove them down. Jack flinches at the air on his bare skin. "Interrogation. They drug me."

Jack moans as he pictures it, and grinds his hips back. It makes sense, he thinks, rape as an instrument of torture: minimal damage, high psychological impact. Not that anything about the cock pressed against him feels _minimal_. "Well now I _really_ wish I'd been th—"

The Soldier gets hold of Jack's chin, and forces three metal fingers into his mouth. " _Shut up_." Jack thinks about biting him, on principle, and immediately thinks better of it. "Suck." He doesn't add, _because that's all you're getting_ , but Jack knows how this works. He wets the metal as best he can, wonders if the Soldier can feel the curling caress of his tongue. His own cock is hard and leaking. It's going to _hurt_.

The Soldier yanks his hand away. His breathing sounds labored, harsh and quick in Jack's ears. For a long moment, nothing happens. Jack squirms invitingly, arching his back. "Do the targets scream when you fuck them? I bet they do. You like that? I can scream for you, if that's what you li—" He breaks off, gasping, as the Soldier shoves two fingers inside him. The metal is unforgiving, crueler than flesh, and the stretch burns. It's been too long since he did this, and he's distantly amazed at the dumb persistence of his own body, repairing itself again and again, erasing its history. There's no time to adjust as the Soldier fucks him open, careless and brutal, and he curls an arm instinctively around his throbbing face to muffle his sounds. He'd offered to scream, but force of habit keeps him quiet. He doesn't like— _things_ , pushed up inside him, savage but impersonal. The Soldier's cock will be better, hot and hard and _human_ , evidence of greed. 

He feels another finger press against his stretched rim, and pain shoots up his spine as the Soldier forces it in. He rocks forward on his knees, a hopeless attempt to crawl away, and the Soldier growls like a scavenger over a carcass, sets his right hand heavily between Jack's shoulder blades to arrest the movement. "Happy?" the Soldier demands.

" _Fuck_." The Soldier's not aiming for his sweet spot, but the metal fingers are _big_ , and every third or fourth stroke sends sparks racing through him. The hurt of it flowers into dizzy euphoria. Jack could come from this, probably, without a hand on his dick. "Please. I want—I want you to fuck me—"

The Soldier spits on his hole, where Jack's stretched wide. Pressure, then, and Jack does scream, although the sound is strangled by his own wrist shoved against his teeth. The fourth finger feels like an impossibility, more than his body can accept. More pain, too, than his sick little brain can twist into pleasure. "Stop," Jack begs, unthinking, the word punched out of him. "Stop, _stop_." 

The Soldier goes still. His breathing is wrong, too fast, too loud. His voice, when he speaks, is wrong too, heavy and slurred. "Tell me to stop," the Soldier says, "and we're done. I never touch you again." He slides his fingers slowly out before grinding them back in, deep as he can reach. Jack sobs. "Tell me." 

_He means it_ , Jack thinks. _He'll walk away from this, from me, and damn the consequences._ The old fear rises like bile, burning his gut. He thinks again of his knife, its blade slicing cleanly through his skin. The peace never lasts as long that way. The _silence_. No: he wants the Soldier, wants what the Soldier can give him, for as long—as long as he can have it. _My fault. Shouldn't have threatened him. Fucking stupid._ He can take his punishment. 

"Don't stop."

The Soldier fucks him again, out and in, setting his weight behind the thrust, dragging another muffled sound from Jack's throat. "You sure? Thought I heard you scream like a little girl."

"That's just—" He breathes through the next thrust, managing the pain. " _Disturbing_. Yes I'm fucking sure. Do your worst, you bastard, I can fucking take it—" He stops talking when the Soldier works his thumb inside, his whole body tensing as the Soldier's knuckles press against his rim. 

"Not smart," the Soldier says, and _fuck_ , he knows, knows it will hurt less if he can make himself—relax—but he can't, he doesn't want this, he _can't_. He cries, ugly and messy, gasping for breath, as the strength of that robot arm is used against him, prying him open, breaking him apart. _Wait_ , he thinks, _please wait_ , but he can't say it, the Soldier might stop, the Soldier might _stop_ and then they'll be _done_ — He feels himself tear as the Soldier forces the widest part of his hand inside. He knows people go—somewhere _else_ , sometimes, in their heads, while they wait for what's happening to them to finish happening, but he's never been able to manage it. Might have ended up less crazy, he thinks, if he could. Or crazier. 

"Stop crying," the Soldier says, "and tell me how much you like it. Tell me how I'm keeping you _happy_." Jack feels the metal fingers curl into a fist, hard and obscenely huge, grinding against his prostate. A sick pleasure tangles with the pain. "Tell me, or I'll stop."

"I li—" Jack says, and groans as the Soldier punches slowly forward. _He's going to kill me._ "I like it. _Please_."

"Please what?"

 _Stop crying_ , Jack thinks, furious at himself, appalled at his own weakness. He doesn't want to know what will happen if the Soldier has to tell him again. "Please—don't stop."

"Good," the Soldier says. He reaches around with his right hand to cup Jack's soft cock, tugging it gently. "Think I can make you come like this?"

"Please don't." _Wrong answer, moron._ He can't help it. He doesn't want to come on the Soldier's fist, the smell of his own blood and shit thick in his nose. He wants the Soldier, who has never been shown pity, to take pity on him. His voice sounds small. "You're hurting me."

"I know."

It doesn't take long, after that, the Soldier's human hand stroking his cock, the metal fist working inside him. He spills shamefully over the Soldier's warm fingers, and his vision dims as the Soldier finally eases free of his body. He sobs through it, and the Soldier lets him. 

* * *

The missions continue. Jack hears whispered speculation about _too long_. About _erratic behavior_. The Soldier seems the same to him: ruthlessly competent and permanently pissed off, like a guy whose bad fucking day has lasted half a century. 

The game continues. The Soldier doesn't make him beg again, and Jack holds on hard against a rush of gratitude that threatens to send him to his knees with no help at all from the open-handed blow to his cheek, the neat punch to his gut. It's different, a little, being scared—but any sane person would have been scared of the Soldier to begin with. When the Soldier orders him to strip, his hands go so clumsy he's afraid the Soldier will laugh. The Soldier only waits, though, until Jack is naked and trembling, teeth clenched to keep the old entreaty ( _don't do it again_ ) from tumbling out. Then the Soldier steps into his space and wrenches one arm up behind his back, twists it hard, and it's all right. It's good. It's what he needs.

 _I know what they do to you_ , Jack had taunted, recklessly goading, cruising for violence. A miscalculation, in the event, but not a lie: he does know, more or less, because stupid fucking frat boys like to brag. Jack might not rate an invitation to the _parties_ , but they're hardly secret: and even if they were, he thinks, even if he'd never heard so much as the breath of a boastful rumor, he'd still have an educated fucking guess, because the Soldier is a demon in the field but a slave nonetheless and people are the way they are. So he can't say why it takes him by surprise, the day he goes looking for the Soldier and finds him crumpled like a rag doll on the floor of his cell, his back clawed to ribbons, his thighs a mess of blood and stinking come. It shouldn't, but it does.

The Soldier moans at the sound of footsteps, and pushes himself a few pained inches further from the door, his right arm braced beneath him as he tries to crawl. The left drags like a dead thing at his side. 

"Jesus fuck," Jack says. After a long numb moment, he crosses the few feet of space between them to kneel by the Soldier's savaged body. "Did you _fight_ them, you crazy bastard?"

The Soldier's eyes are closed, his face disfigured with bruising. Jack thinks his nose is broken. "Hey," he says, when there's no response. " _Hey_. Look at me."

Flinching at his tone, the Soldier obeys, peering up dazedly at this new tormentor. _This is what it's like_ , Jack thinks, and then he sees recognition dawn, sees the wary expectation fade from the Soldier's face. 

"Oh," the Soldier says. Then: "Don't be stupid." His eyes drift shut again. "I'm always—" He makes a low, choked sound that Jack realizes, after some delay, is meant to be a laugh. "Always good."

 _What did they do to you_ , Jack almost says—but he can see what they did. Whipped him, and raped him, and beat his face in. More drugs, too, he thinks, unless the torture alone has produced this docile, sleepy confusion. "What did they do to your arm?"

The Soldier rolls a little, demonstrating the limb's useless weight. Fresh blood oozes from his lacerated shoulder. "Disabled." His lips pull back from his teeth. "Cowards." When Jack says nothing, the Soldier's grin fades. He sighs, and settles his cheek against the cold floor. "Your turn."

"Yeah," Jack says. "Yeah, my fucking turn." He pushes himself to his feet. Apart from the bed, the little cell is depressingly bare. He pulls his shirt off, and watches the Soldier's human hand curl slowly in on itself, gripping at the concrete as though it might tilt out from under him. He wads the cloth in his hands, and steps across to the corner with the metal sink and toilet to wet it under the tap.

He's afraid to touch the Soldier's back. The Soldier heals fast, even Jack knows that, but those wounds need disinfectant and clean bandages, not his own ineffectual pawing. The rest of it, though— He kneels again, and draws a slow breath, and nudges the Soldier's legs apart to wipe at the sticky leavings between his thighs.

"No," the Soldier says. Jack ignores the rasping whisper. Again, gathering his voice: " _No_. I fucking told you not to touch me. Take what you're owed, or get out."

He sits back on his heels, the soiled rag dangling from one hand. "You want their filth on you?" His chest feels tight. "You want me to leave you like this?"

The Soldier sighs. "I want you to go away," he says, and Jack thinks again about drugs, because his tone has lost its tension, wandered back to mildness. He sounds, Jack thinks, rather gently drunk. "They find you playing nursemaid, s'last thing I need." He coughs out another painful laugh. "Last thing _you_ need."

"Fine," Jack says, and stands. He pulls the blanket off the cot and considers a moment before draping it over the Soldier's lower body. The weight would be agony on his torn back, but Jack can cover that much of him. 

The Soldier has another thought. "They give you trouble? 'Bout being—" He pauses, but diplomacy fails him. "So fucked in the head?"

Jack shrugs. "Not really." 

"Well, good." He shivers a little under the blanket's warmth, and quiets. "Kill them all," the Winter Soldier says comfortably, and falls asleep.

* * *

Jack swings by the grocery store on his way home, and empties his overstuffed mailbox before climbing the five crumbling flights to his one-room fire hazard of a flat, and when he tosses the envelopes on the table—ads, mostly, and bills, and one or two magazines—he sees another of the letters waiting for him. _Notice of prosecution_ : some sad fat fuck, probably, in some town Jack's never heard of, with his right hand and his hard drive for company. Or maybe not: hell, maybe the feds caught the fucker at dinner with the wife and kids. Jack puts away the bread and eggs and milk and then he shoves the letter in the drawer with the others. Won't open them, can't throw them away.

He'll take a shower, he thinks, and have a beer and a sandwich in front of the TV, and then he'll go to bed, and in the morning he will still be here, will be in fact one day deeper into the improbable future. But the noise in his head rises, a churning, hissing tide, eating at the edges of awareness. It drowns the tinny voice of the radio, swallows the sound of the shower's spray. He digs his fingers into the fading bracelet of a bruise, remembering the grip that had tightened and twisted until he cried out, certain the slender bones would break. It's not enough. It's been days since he had what he needed from the Soldier, and his skin itches for it, his body aches. He towels himself dry and steps into a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and then he strips them off again, clumsy as he'd been under the Soldier's sardonic gaze, and pulls on low-slung jeans and a tight black t-shirt. Fuck the TV dinner and the awful expanse of the evening, fuck the night rushing up to meet him, alone in his bed and awake awake awake with the roaring in his skull and the dark pressing down: he is going _out_. There's a club he knows where they won't look too close at his shitty fake ID, won't ask too many questions of a boy who wants to get hurt, get fucked, get quiet. Last time he'd gone—months ago, he thinks, as he shoves his keys into his pocket, and stills a moment in surprise—he'd let two men do it together, two friends, one holding his wrists while the other forced him open, and he'd liked their low familiar laughter, the easy way they touched and spoke and shared him between them, liked the thought, even, of having a friend like that himself someday—and then they'd finished with him and another man had pulled him up by the hair and raped his mouth and beaten him until he crawled—

 _No you fucking don't._ The memory of the Soldier's voice cuts cold and clear across the clamor of his thoughts, certain as a stone sinking through water. Jack stops with his hand on the doorknob, leans his ringing head against the heavy wood. It's been _days_ , will be days _more_ before the Soldier heals enough to hurt him again, and he needs it, he _needs_ — He thinks of the Soldier, his movements stiff, his left arm hanging lifeless—how long before they repair it, Jack wonders, how long until they're brave enough—lifting his human hand to touch Jack's face, fingers brushing feather light over fresh bruises. _Who did that._ He'll have no answer, of course, he never bothers to learn their names—

Fuck this. He turns from the door, staggering a little, and weaves an unsteady course to the kitchen. There's a bottle of vodka in the freezer. He retrieves it, and takes a long pull, and curls up in the tattered chair in front of the blank TV with the icy bottle in his fist. Where, eventually, morning finds him.

* * *

The Soldier heals, but the missions are over. He should have guessed, Jack thinks, from the extent of the injury, that the higher-ups had finished with their weapon, and wanted a toy. They will play with him for a little while, and then they will put him away.

Then it's the last time, and Jack writhes under the Soldier's blows and begs for more until the Soldier forces two fingers into his mouth to silence him, making him gag. He moans at the rough thrusts, a simulated fucking, and then he moans again, suddenly frantic to speak, and shoves at the invading flesh with his tongue, and the Soldier takes his hand away. He grips Jack's hair to pull his head back, subjecting his face to critical examination. "Yes?"

"How much," Jack says, and has to stop for breath, his eyes watering. "How much will you remember? After the ice."

The Soldier regards him flatly. "That's for the Secretary to decide."

"Can you—I wish you could—" The Soldier tightens his grip in warning, and Jack gasps. And still the words tumble out, a wave of senseless, hopeless longing. "It's stupid, I know it is, I _know_ , but I wish you could—leave yourself a reminder, somehow." _Stop this_ , he thinks, and stumbles on. "Like, note to self: this dumb kid likes to get kicked around, just say yes or he'll make an incredible nuisance of himself." He laughs, or tries to. The Soldier's expression doesn't change.

After a moment, the Soldier says, "Give me your knife."

"What?" Jack says, but he is already slipping it free, handing it over. The Soldier lets go of his head and plants a booted foot against his chest, shoving him hard, and Jack topples from his knees onto his back in an ungainly sprawl. 

"Off," the Soldier says, touching his own belt, and Jack feels the usual flare of fear as he opens his pants, shoves them down around his thighs. The Soldier kneels above him, trapping Jack's body between his legs, and strokes the flat of the blade thoughtfully across the smooth, taut skin of his right hip. Jack shudders. For a long minute, the Soldier studies his face. "I don't think," he says at last, "I will remember you."

Jack shuts his eyes. He nods.

"Look at me." When Jack obeys, the Soldier says, "Do you want this?"

As if he knows what the fuck _this_ is. "Yes."

"All right." He drops his gaze to Jack's hip, his face intent. "It will hurt. Hold still."

When the Soldier begins to carve, Jack feels the air rush from his lungs. He will not cry out, he thinks, but it is a shocking, searing pain, and before long the first sounds escape. The Soldier ignores him. He holds the whole of his mind to the next breath, and the next, and he is good, he doesn't move, not before the Soldier pauses to consider his work. When the blade comes down again, Jack flinches badly. 

The Soldier's eyes flick up. "Hold still," he repeats. "If you move, I'll—"

"You'll stop," Jack says, panting. "Fuck you, I know." Before the Soldier can begin again, though, he cranes his neck, peering down his own body to see the mark. When he drops his head back to the floor, he is smiling. 

Cutting turns to flaying, then, and the screams pile up in his throat. He doesn't move. The Soldier doesn't stop. Tonight, Jack thinks, the knowledge unfolding slow and dreamlike within him, tonight he will go home and tip the contents of that drawer into the sink, and he will set the lot on fire. He will do it in perfect quiet. He will not be afraid. 

And tomorrow, he will stand naked in front of the mirror. He will not be afraid to do that either. He will look at his naked body and see the Winter Soldier's fucking star inches from his dick, red and angry as a brand. Will see it there, he thinks, suppressing a sudden, buoyant urge to laugh, for the rest of his goddamn life.

"You might, though," Jack says, when it's done. "You _might_ remember. And when you're alive again—maybe—"

The Soldier rolls his eyes, and cups his metal hand gently against Jack's cheek, touching him without hurting him for the first and last time. "Grow up."

"Oh," Jack says, tired but sincere. "Fucking _count_ on it."

* * *

And he does.


End file.
